Category: healthy

I am always concern about the environment, and lately I am looking into zero-waste cooking. Actually you just need to be creative and always have that idea in your mind, try to really think again before throwing anything away. You might surprise yourself how much you can make use of from the food waste that you created.

Today, I am making some snack bars from the leftover pulp that I’ve got from juicing with tomato, carrot, red bell pepper, celery and some ginger. It’s always a shame to throw away the pulp, there are a lot of ideas for leftover pulp, but today I am sharing this idea of making snack bars with you. We already kind of give up the idea of having chips and other junk food at home, we rather have healthy snack, such as fruit, cherry tomatoes, celery, cucumber and carrot. This one could be one of the healthy snack on our list when we are hungry in the middle of the day or in the middle of the night.

So, I am using around a cup of leftover pulp, mix with half cup of pumpkin seeds, and half cup of mixed nuts. You can also add some raisins, but I don’t really like raisins so I don’t add them. Then, we add one tablespoon of olive oil or coconut oil, and three tablespoons of honey or syrup. I preheated the oven to 200 degree Celsius, and we just have to mix all the ingredients and press the mixture into a baking tray. A little tip is to use the back of a spoon to help and flatten the snack bar mixture to around 1cm thick. Then you can add sesame seeds on top as a final touch. Bake the snack bars for around 20 minutes, let it cool down after baking, and then cut them into small pieces. You can store them into vacuum jar or even freeze them.

It’s such a great idea, to make use of food waste and stay with healthy diet. You can also give this to your dogs if all the ingredients are dog safe, you just need to check it out and make sure they are good to eat them.

The Summer time here in Hong Kong is so hot and humid! I used to drink hot or warm water, but that becomes a bit too hard in Summer time. Sometimes it’s just so refreshing to have a glass of ice water! But for my husband, he always prefer a touch of taste, we used to have some Coke, packs of ice tea or juice inside the fringe. Of course, it is not that healthy to drink those all the time, too much sugar and some sort of unknown chemicals.

Last Sunday, while I was preparing the dinner, my husband suddenly jump inside the kitchen and need to make this drink, like right now. He said he just watched Jaime Olivier doing that on TV, orange peel with all the juice in, then lemon peel with all the juice in as well, and one tea spoon of turmeric powder, that’s it! We tried but maybe a bit too much of turmeric, so we made another one with less turmeric, just a few shake, yeah and it tastes fantastic and refreshing! So, from now on we decided to drink this and stopped buying any soda. Turmeric for sure is doing something good to our body, as everyone starting to realise how good and powerful turmeric is, together with orange and lemon which contain a lot of vitamins, it is not wrong to have this as a regular drink instead of Coca Cola.

The other day, I was helping to host this event in office, as I am one of the committee of the Green Team in our company. Instead of serving soda, I suggested to have drinks with different kind of fruits, which is going to fit the theme better. Of course one of the key highlight was this drink, but I’ve also created few others in order to provide some varieties. The second one I’ve made was with cucumber slices, lemon wedges and juice with turmeric powder. The third one simply with only lemon and orange slices. The forth one with strawberries and cucumber slices, and the last jug with strawberries and lemon slices. Everyone were so happy to try them out, some of them were even trying every single one to see how different the taste is, just like a wine tasting. Few of them came to me and would like to know how to make this highlighted drink, and they said for sure they are going to try this out at home!

I feel great to share this idea around and now we are having this drink everyday instead of drinking soda, which for sure I believe it’s much more healthy. Well, at least I feel much more refreshing!

I went for a friend’s birthday party last Saturday, we had dinner at this local restaurant inside this wet market in North Point. The food was amazing, we ate some seafood, like deep fried oyster, steam clams with eggs, and etc. Then, we went for karaoke and of course we drunk a lot, whiskey mixed water or green tea. I don’t know what went wrong, but my stomach started to feel bad since then. Not sure if because of the seafood or the ice is not clean for the drinks.

Anyway, my stomach started to feel slightly better yesterday, I was craving for this pasta in soup every time I don’t feel well. It’s kind of light, not that heavy and rich, and in soup that comforts you and keeps you warm. Very simple and easy to handle, see if you like to try it out.

The ingredients are very simple too, broccoli, potatoes, spaghetti and chicken broth. Boil a pot of hot water, chop the potatoes and broccoli in small cubes. Bring the hot water to boil, then put some olive oil and chicken broth or condensed chicken stock in, then add potatoes first, let them cook until half way done. Then, add broccoli and cook for few 2 to 3 minutes. Then add the broken spaghetti in and cook until it’s done, cooking time can refer to the package. Season with some salt as a final touch. You can also cook this with chicken meat in cubes too, if you think this is too vegetarian.

Serve the pasta with black pepper, you can also add some more flavours as you like. I like to add some red chilli pepper flakes, parmesan cheese, dry parsley and more olive oil on top.

The first thing to get ready is the shrimps, boil a pot of water, and cook the shrimp in the hot water until they turn into red meaning cooked. Put the shrimps aside until they cool down. Repeat the same thing for the vermicelli, cook them quickly in the hot water, not to overcook them, then put them aside until they cool down. On the other hand, we need to get two things done as well. Heat up the pan and then put the shredded coconut in the dry pan, fry them until they turn into brown colour. The next thing to get ready is to grind some cashew nuts with the mortar.

Let’s start to get all the chopping done, cut the cucumber and red pepper into thin strips, chop the shallots, mint and coriander, then mixed them into a large bowl. Put the pomelo, shrimp and vermicelli into the bowl as well when they are both cool down, then mix everything together. You can either add the mixed greens here or lay them on the plate as a base when you serve the salad, it’s up to you. What I did is lay the mixed greens on the plate as a base, then put the mixed salad on top of the mixed greens, and now put the salad dressing on the salad. Sprinkle some shredded coconuts and cashew nuts on top of the salad, and do the final touch with the pomegranate. I also serve the salad with some garlic breads.

Special requested by my husband and his would like to start this salad for dinner diet, I don’t think that is difficult to try making different salad every night. With what I’ve cooked the night before, we have some romaine lettuce and cucumber leftover. Let’s come up with a different salad. Chicken maybe an easy and simple choice other than fish. So, I just got a pack of chicken fillet home, and we have all the rest of the ingredients at home.

To grill the chicken fillet, place them in a tray, season them with salt and pepper. I would like to make them with a stronger flavour this time, so I also put a bit of different herbs, ground cumin, oregano, thyme, cayenne pepper, and some garlic. Drizzle with a good amount of olive oil, and put them in the oven with 210C for around 35 mins, turn them over in the middle of the way.

For the salad, I am doing the exacted combination of the night before, thin slices of onion and cucumber, and romaine lettuce in chucks. But I am serving it with a different dressing tonight, instead of the greek yogurt dressing, I am doing a honey and mustard dressing which should go better with the flavour of the chicken. The dressing is simple, just a mix of mustard, honey, olive oil and vinegar. Serve the chicken together with the salad and few slices of toasted baguette.

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! I really wish everyone having a great day! To me, Valentine’s Day is a bit too commercialise, all the retailers are pushing to sell more for valentine’s gift. A dozen of roses costed HKD2,380, something like USD300, way too much! If today is about love, we should just love our love, do something nice together and enjoy the time being together.

Unfortunately, my husband is sick today, still sick. He has been sick for few days already, and he is really craving for chicken soup, he said that’s what he used to have all the time when he was sick back in Germany. The one he was showing me, is actually an instant soup with pasta, I am just thinking how good can a can soup be? Why don’t I cook a real chicken soup? By the way, it will be impossible to find that German can soup here in Hong Kong.

I found it funny that how westerners see chicken soup compare to Chinese. For us, if we catch a flu, Chinese doctor will tell us not to have chicken, and chicken soup for sure is not good. But for westerners, chicken soup is something that you should have when you catch a flu or having fever, because chicken soup can help you to boost your immune system. I really don’t understand why Westerners and Chinese have such a big difference towards chicken, my husband said maybe because we do have a lot of problem with chicken, such as bird flu, I am not sure if that is the reason.

So, the chicken soup with pasta ended up so tasty and my husband loves it. Hope he will feel better tomorrow. The ingredients of the chicken soup are: first of all, of course the chicken! I was struggling with getting the whole chicken or just using chicken pieces, so I ended up with the whole chicken just because I found this Danish chicken at the supermarket. It will be difficult if I have to cook the soup with the local Chinese chicken, as they are all so skinny and boney. Vegetables are also important for this soup, onion, celery and carrot, as well as leek; spices are also important, as that help you to open up your nose, black pepper, red pepper, cayenne pepper, cumin and allspice. You also need herbs: chopped rosemary and parsley, get some garlic, jalapeños and red chilli pepper as well.

Chop everything and get ready, I also remove the skin of the chicken, because I think it’s better. Make sure you have a pot is big enough, because with everything in will take up lots of space. Heat up the pot with olive oil, fry the onion, celery and carrot until they start to sweat, cut the whole chicken into four big pieces and place them in the pot. Put all the herbs and spices in the pot, except parsley and leek. Pour water inside the pot that covering all ingredients and let it boil, then switch to low heat and let it boil for 90 minutes. After one and a half hour, take out the chicken, and you need to debone the chicken. It will be super easy because the meat will become so tender and so easy to remove. The only thing is too hot! You can use two forks to get that done easily. At the same time, you can boil a pot of hot water and boil the shell pasta and get it ready. Place all chicken meat back into the soup, and put the leek and parsley. I guess now you can switch off the stove. About the pasta, you can do it in two ways, either you pour everything in the soup, but they will grow and become bigger and bigger later on; or you can leave them aside, only mix them with the soup when you eat them, so they don’t soak up all the soup. Serve the soup with a squeeze of lemon juice to add some freshness and vitamin C as well.

I am happy that my husband already feel a lot better after having the soup! Happy Valentine’s Day 😉